How to package success?

How do successful mid-tier teams manage to prolong their success? Let's take Gonzaga and Butler as the prime examples. The obvious answer is that you get a good coach, and then you get that good coach to stay for a long time (which is MUCH easier said than done). The other component, which is somewhat less obvious, is that neither of them attempted to make a move into a Power Five conference, or even one of the top seven or eight conferences. They stayed in conferences where basketball was king, forcing the attention of the sports fans at their school to be upon them for most of the year instead of for just one month.